For Alfie and me, date nights are like unicorns: rare and magical. Oh, we veg out in front of the tv after the kids have gone to bed, and we sometimes we even manage to turn the tv off and have a real conversation and - *gasp!* - a romantic moment or two. I'm talking about actual dates where we go out to dinner and a movie, or dinner and a show, or attend a party (kid-free!) or just dinner. Heck, even coffee after some boring school function counts as a date in my book. Anything that gets us out of the house and away from the kids!

Like many parents, there are a number of factors conspiring against more frequent Date Nights:

* Lack of energy* Lack of funds* Lack of people we trust to watch our kids* Lack of availability of said people

Yup, like I said. Unicorns.

But here's something just as unicorn-like: the relationship I have with my husband. It's rare. It's magical. I value it. I don't want to lose it. And we'll do anything to keep it going.

Date Nights are important, because it helps us reconnect as people, not just as 3Po's and Jammy's and The Pea's parents. We plan to be together long after our kids have flown from our nest, so we do what we have to do in order to keep that magical unicorn from disappearing from our lives. Even if it means packing my husband peanut-butter sandwiches to take to the office or giving up that cute pair of new shoes I saw for spring or waiting till my mom makes her annual visit from the Philippines or playing phone tag with our regular babysitter.

I'll say it again. Date nights are like unicorns. If only it weren't so darn difficult to catch one!

If you feel the same way, check out Sitterscout, the latest and greatest unicorn-catching tool:SitterScout is an online/mobile tool that works from any smartphone (or on your computer) to help book your existing babysitters faster, by instantly contacting the sitters you choose - and enabling them to respond - via SMS.

SitterScout can be used to schedule any of your babysitters, no matter where you’ve found them - whether it’s the girl down the street, or someone you found through an online sitter service.

You enter your sitters’ information (which is only visible to you,) then choose which sitters to contact when you need some time away. We contact those chosen via SMS, and they can reply back with a simple text message to accept or decline. When a sitter accepts, the parent gets a text message letting them know immediately.

Parents can choose to invite their sitters in “rounds,” so their favorites get first dibs, or they can contact everyone at once.

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